


Keeping Score

by GallifreyanOmnishambles



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Fluff and Angst, Freckles, M/M, Self-Harm, Tattoos, sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-27
Updated: 2016-01-27
Packaged: 2018-05-16 17:09:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5833717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GallifreyanOmnishambles/pseuds/GallifreyanOmnishambles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hux has freckles. Kylo Ren is fascinated by them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Keeping Score

General Hux has freckles. Kylo was surprised by this, when he first noticed them early in the early days of their joint command. Hux had an air of having designed his entire persona to present the perfection of The First Order. His uniform is always immaculate. His hair so careful set that it hardly seems real. For him to have so haphazard a feature as freckles is jarring. 

Ren first noticed them when he was forced to interrupt one of the General's training sessions. An urgent communication had come through from Snoke and the Knight needed to commandeer more of Hux' troopers than usual. 

Kylo has a life long habit of avoiding eye contact. Even behind his mask he finds himself staring over people's shoulders when they speak, unless Force manipulation is involved. That's why he happened to be staring at Hux' collarbone, though he's not sure why the sight of the spray of gold-brown marks scattered there would make him stumble over his words. 

Increasingly he finds reasons to confront Hux in the gym after that. Soon he's realised that the freckles are everywhere- arms, shoulders, hidden under the ginger fuzz on his legs, peaking out when his vest rides up to expose his belly. Kylo wants to count them and get to know every single one. It becomes something of an obsession. 

When Hux finally gives in to Ren's rather awkward flirting, the freckles on his neck are the first thing that Kylo dares to kiss with the full heat of his heart. The General's plump lips are far too intimidating for a novice. Though Hux soon cures Ren of that particular nervousness. 

When they begin to share a bed on a nightly basis Kylo starts to notice that the freckles are not all the same. Roughly half of them are oddly regular in shape and seem to progress in lines across the General's body. Most of these odd freckles are a pale golden colour but some are darker and larger. A few are deep brown and these seem to be concentrated around his forearms. Though Ren studies them with an intensity that makes Hux slightly uncomfortable- even going so far as to meditate on the matter- Kylo cannot decipher their meaning. 

It's only after the fall of Starkiller Base, when Kylo lays bleeding and half dead in the med bay, that he finds out the origin of those strange marks. He wakes to find Hux forcing the thick black pumice ash from the collapse of his weaponised planet, into deep holes he's punched into the skin of his wrist. The General's mind is churning and it's easy enough for Ren to slip into his mind.

The markings are coded coordinates for every battle Hux has ever lead. He's won far more than he's lost and those successes are recorded in gold. It's the failures he needs to remember so he can learn from them. The worse the defeat, the darker and heavier he applies the mark. The loss of Starkiller is recorded in heavy black over his pulse point, the holes so deep they'll never properly fill in when they heal. 

That's when Kylo realises Hux won't ever forgive him for his failure against Rey- it's tattooed into Hux' very being, just like its burned across Ren's face.


End file.
